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Capital Ambition eyes procurement hub for London

The prospect of a procurement portal for London has moved a step closer after a report into existing regional schemes suggested the model could deliver savings.

Capital Ambition, London’s regional improvement and efficiency partnership, is developing the project with the London Development Agency, the Society of London Treasurers and London Heads of Procurement.

The portal, which could be in place by November 2010 if the business case for it is fully established, is intended to:

  • Provide a resource for local authority procurement officers, by pulling in one place all procurement-related resources such as the Contracts Register Service (CRS)/Online Expenditure Analysis, electronic knowledge exchanges, framework contracts, toolkits and guidance, standard procurement documentation and the like. There would also be links to the Office of Government Commerce, Supply2Gov and other relevant websites
  • Enable and encourage greater collaboration in procurement and achieve greater cashable savings through a more robust analysis and reporting of opportunities available via the CRS/OEA
  • Provide a platform for e-tendering systems and their interface with authority systems and the CRS
  • Enable contractors to access public sector opportunities and simplify and streamline their access to work and engagement with relevant bodies.

The feasibility report revealed that there are more than 5,900 London borough contracts (expiring within a ten year period) held within the CRS and with a total value in excess of £16bn.

“The availability of a portal will allow for….collaborative opportunities to be explored, analysed and supported by appropriate functionality (these would include an events calendar, discussion forums, user-generated content, an MI dashboard through RSS feeds, news, blogs, etc) that enables the procurement officers involved to proactively cooperate amongst their peers in assessing viability and implementing contracting actions,” it said.

The report identified three potential funding models: total funding from a central body; shared funding where a central body provides support services and authorities provide a contribution; and distributed funding where each authority pays a share of the total cost of ongoing support.